Is a good soundstage hard to come by?

[Erukian]

I understand how recordings tend to be nearfield. ie, right above the bald guys head. but wouldnt more mic's give more cue's to the size of the recordings?

honestly it seems like to me that the best way to record something is to put it right where the director's standing (sorta the sweet spot) and have a stereo-mic placed there which can absorb all the sound cue's, blending of sections, etc.. Then lets say it's pressed to vynil or stored in dvd-a, or any sort of audiophile approved format.

so I wonder then, if it comes down to the recording being done on stage vs audience perspective's, you might lose a lot of soundstage cue's from the mixdown of the on-stage recording, but everything might get blurred with the audience perspective recording.

It seems like the only scientifically way to do this would be through ambisonics.

-Joe

[colterphoto1]

I think Dragonfyr is referring to something perhaps similar to what we used to call binaural recording (kindly correct if I'm wrong here), where a single stereo pair with a 'dummy head'in between was placed at a sweet spot to record the ambient clues exactly as the human ear would hear them. Of course these recordings would be properly heard through a headset, but would give good spatial info with speakers also.

Seems to me that the more mics and science one pour into the recording, the worse the situation gets. Have you tried any classical recordings done this way?

Michael

[dragonfyr]

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On 8/5/2005 5:25:24 PM Erukian wrote:

I understand how recordings tend to be nearfield. ie, right above the bald guys head. but wouldnt more mic's give more cue's to the size of the recordings?

honestly it seems like to me that the best way to record something is to put it right where the director's standing (sorta the sweet spot) and have a stereo-mic placed there which can absorb all the sound cue's, blending of sections, etc.. Then lets say it's pressed to vynil or stored in dvd-a, or any sort of audiophile approved format.

so I wonder then, if it comes down to the recording being done on stage vs audience perspective's, you might lose a lot of soundstage cue's from the mixdown of the on-stage recording, but everything might get blurred with the audience perspective recording.

It seems like the only scientifically way to do this would be through ambisonics.

-Joe----------------

Ambiosonics????????????????? Oh brother! Hey I know!!! Lets use an EQ!!!!!

There is one way that accurately does this without all of the mystical gobbledy**** (careful, that's a trademarked technical term!)

And it is described in the AES preprint mentioned above!! And thus far, partly due to all of the various companies pushing their proprietary 'ok' but not great trademarked marketing techniques, the technique that actually accomplishes this , but is not suited for all recording, is the ITE technique!

The measurements are taken literally in the pressure zone of each ear next to the eardrum (pinnae) of both ears on the head of a person in the sound field! And because of this, ALL the phase information is recorded EXACTLY as experienced by a person within the sound field!

The only commercial company that has actively explored it is IMAX. And the technique accurately captures the entire 360 degree sound field.

I have personally listened to 2 recordings using this technique.

One was of a symphony where the conductor wore the microphones. And yes, you can pinpoint each instrument, and even accurately localize the idiot in row 14 stage left who talks or coughs in the audience!

The other was when Don Davis was called by the Grateful Dead to assist them with their SR system. The show was in 1990 with the Dead and Sting. The recording was made in the taper's section - and all was OK - nothing staggering, as you were listening to the PA. And despite their then quad system, you are not localizing anything to any great degree from the stage!!! And I don't care what you were 'using' at the show!

But what WAS profound, was an anomaly that occurred during the taping. Another person came up to the person recording the event (wearing the ear mics) and tapped him on the shoulder and said "excuse me" - or words to that effect.

While listening to the recording, when this happened 'in' the recording, i immediately turned to my left to respond 'over my shoulder' as if someone HAD tapped me on the shoulder! The acoustic cue was so accurate that you responded as if it were real! Of course, thereafter I sat there feeling pretty sheepish as there was of course no one there!

After my turn was over, it was quite humorous to watch the next unknowing person listen until the same point came and then watch them whip around to respond and feel embarrassed as well. To me, this is the ultimate technique to record the accurately record the ambient richness of an event like a Moroccan bazaar in a travelogue. Or a symphony.

But it has limited use in rock, where the actual location of an artist has little value unless you are trying to recreate a live event (from what reference position? the players? and which one? the audience? or???? And the best job of this is that which Mickey Hart has done with American Beauty on the DVD-A re-release, and the next best would be "The Kids are Alright" remix/re-release. But even these are 'fantasy' creations. Read/listen to the production comments describing exactly this! And the imaging of a production such as Peter Gabriel, in studio OR live would be a mess without the creative placement of instruments in a creative (read 'non-real' manner!) So recognize the limitations!

Additionally, the truly neat thing about this technique is that it does NOT require ANY encoding or decoding!!! NONE! It simply required digital recording techniques sufficient to capture all of the phased information. The playback system consisted of 2 stero amps, one for the front L & R, and the other for the rear L & R channels. The rear speakers were adjusted just so their present was slightly apparent, and then backed down just a touch. That's it!

But this is not appropriate for formats such as rock where the artists aren't even in the same room with each other, or in isolation booths, or if they are in the same room, they are there at different times!! And now we have artist's laying down tracks for the same songs from remote locations in different cities! And where the norm is for a blended direct and miced signal! Part of this talk of soundstage is manufactured! It is an engineer's creation in the studio to put the drums panned L&R, while the keyboards are primarily right, and the guitar primarily left, etc. etc., and to think otherwise is to show a fundamental ignorance of the recording process!

Yes, you can have a soundstage determined by the merging of the two or three sound sources( speakers), and this is determined in large measure simply by acoustics and the psycho-acoustics experienced primarily in the time domain, and to a lesser extent in the frequency domain (especially as they are corollaries of each other - read Faraday and Haas.)

And you also have the fundamental contribution to the soundstage in the actual recording , mixing and mastering process! And they are NOT the same! And lumping all them into the same large hodgepodge generalization merely results in a chaotic scenario that is not resolved by moving speakers or some voodoo effects procesor, whichever one you chose (and I am not debating ambiosonics nor any other DSP process here!)

What we are trying to talk about is not esoteric. And it is well understood. And it does NOT require some weird attempt to artificially reconstruct some phony minimalist approximation of reality.

All it requires is a fundamental understanding of the limitations of the playback system as distinct from the recording process, and the techniques involved in both. And you cannot get out more then what is contained in the original source!!! And moving the speakers around will not overcome the fundamental limitations of the recording process!<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

[consistent]

Hi Guys,

I'm reading lots in these posts and do understand that the equipment, technique, mic placement and cues located within the room in the recording all add to the experience of listening. Whether you are sitting in the audience at a rock concert or in front of a symphony orchestra you simlpy won't get front to back and side to side that you could get from a recording. The recording in a lot of sessions is made from all directions but is manipulated for intamacy in your home. So given this, some people have used the Fibonacci Method (Golden Ratio)to enhance their experience of listening in their rooms. I have used this method (can't do it on corner horns) with other arrays in the placement of stereo speakers and it does highten the listening experience and does give you more spatial cues to the recording, as though your are in the MIDDLE of the performers or close by. It is not for some people but try it, you have nothing to lose other than a few hours and may shed a few pounds because you need to do a bit of work in moving your speakers around the room. Also room treatments do a lot to enhance experience and add to the effect you desire. There are some sites on this (Cardas) and XLO did put out a disc on speaker set-up back in the mid 90's.

Have a go!

Cheers

[psg]

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On 8/5/2005 3:59:30 PM IndyKlipschFan wrote:

Be careful your not "over doing the sound/picture in your mind" with bad source material.

(7.1 system all La Scalas downstairs...Story below.)

I can put, for instance, the Diana Krall DVD, "Live in Paris" on, turn off the picture... everyone is just like you said, is EXACTLY where they are supposed to be in stereo. BUT, it feels like Dinana is coming out of the center speaker.... it is soo real you can even walk up to check it out and nope not on.. go sit down and wow... are you sure? As you go to hear it again in disbelief.

My point is, on this recording it is dead on where things are... Back "in the day" when sad to say we had 4-8 tacks to record... engineers took great pride in positioning on the final 2 tracks where things are. Listen to a Miles Davis jazz CD and marvel just how much material is either left or right....and yes sometimes int the middle too..BUT it SOUNDS wonderful compared to most of the over produced stuff out today..

My 2 cents..

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I love that DVD but use the DTS track because of the better dynamic range it has (the stereo and DD tracks seem compressed in comparison). I assume you are talking about the stereo track?

BTW, the drum solo on track "Cry me a River" is simply the best I have heard. I crank it up to 0 dB and Wow!

[PrestonTom]

There are several good points that have been made.

Much of it lies in the recording technique. Unfortunately, we have little control over that.

However, Gil is absolutely correct (as he often is). Since the Klipsch heritage are efficient cabinets, the sound will be relatively detailed (given decent electronics that do not have much hum/hiss/noise). Gil has pointed the direction: spend your time, effort, money & energy on speaker placement and room treatment.

The cure is not a simple one, much experimentation will be required to eek out all the benefits. I beleive that is the proper course. Otherewise, you will end up spending a great deal of money on electronics that will only create modest gains in improvement.

In attempting this you will need some well-recorded (well-engineered) sources to start with. I would suggest music that you are familiar with and that you can demo on other systems also.

Good luck,

-Tom

[sunnysal]

Dragon has rightly pointed out that it all begins with the recording of the performance. The dummy head and in-the-ear recordings do a great job (I have heard dummy head recordings but not in-the-ear) at preserving the experience as it would be heard by an audience member. I also seem to remember that ray kimber is working on a new system that seeks to preserve these spacial clues.

once we have a good recording to listen to...the setup, listening room and components certainly can effect whether or not we can reliably hear the recording space. I find depth to be somehwat suspect, I have yet to reliably be able to hear diferentiation front to back of instruments in a recording, though left to right is a cake walk. I do, on some recordings, detect a difference in reverberation in back stage instruments versus front stage instruments but the visualization of front to back still evades me.

perhaps it is my system´s inperfections or the recording´s, I do not know. but I too would love to hear a recording in my home that placed an accurate visual of the performance venue in front of me...maybe someday that will be possible, right now I enjoy closing my eyes and "seeing" a band playing in front me, arrayed across a stage left to right, basically on the same plane...good enough for now.

regards, tony

[ZAKO]

The best recordings Ive made......Set up mic,s, Set proper levels. start recorder, Then shoot the engineer.